Lastly, I’ll share with you the best general tips for approaching noise removal and reduction.

1. Use a dynamic microphone

This one is easy. The first mic you buy in a home studio should be a dynamic microphone.

Why you ask? Dynamic microphones are less sensitive than condenser microphones.

For this reason they tend to capture high frequency background noises less, such as computer fans.

They will also be less sensitive to room irregularities and reverb/echoes.

2. Use a cardioid pattern microphone

In a home studio environment you should also be using a cardioid pattern microphone.

These mics reject sound from the rear, so you can point them away from noise sources.

Yep, it’s that easy!

If your computer fan is noisy, put it on the other side of the room and point the mic away from it.

If the noise is coming from outside, point the mic away from your windows.

If you live with noisy people, shoot them.

Ahem, only kidding…

Just point the mic away from them!

3. Exploit the signal to noise ratio

This might sound complicated, but trust me, it’s not.

The closer the mic is to the sound source, the less background noise it will pick up.

Simples!

Here’s why:

The closer a mic is to the sound, the louder that sound will be.

But the background noise stays at a constant level.

So when the sound that you want to capture is louder (because it is closer to the mic), you don’t have to bring up the gain as much. Because of this, you aren’t increasing the level of the background noise as much.

On the contrary, if the mic was really far away from the sound source, it would capture it at a much lower volume. You would then have to turn the track up to hear it properly, and in doing so you would also be increasing the volume of the noise.

Of course, you can also move the mic away from the noise source (e.g. the window). Then it will be even quieter!

4. Put a heavy blanket or duvet over the sound source when possible

This one can get a bit sweaty (as I mentioned earlier) if you’re recording your voice and need to get under the duvet with your mic.

But it’s such a quick an easy way to isolate a sound.

If you’re recording an amplifier it’s a no brainer.

Packing blankets work well, but feel free to just get in to bed and use a duvet (I’m not sure this would help with productivity though).

5. Get in the wardrobe and close the door

Another common technique. Mainly for vocals, voice over work and podcasts.

This trick works in multiple ways:

You get some nice reverb dampening from the clothes.

You avoid the echoes that come with larger rooms.

You have another door blocking the sound.

You can easily put your laptop/computer in another room to get rid of fan noise.

Rob is a professional audio engineer and educator, currently writing for Envato Tuts+ (13 million readers per month) and teaching over 12,000 students on Udemy in topics related to audio (including voice recording and audio for video).
He is also the founder of Home Studio Center, the place where people go to get better at home recording.